By Alexander Smith
MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) -Sailing’s first medal races were pushed back a day on Thursday after two attempts at the men’s skiff decider were abandoned, with officials concluding that there was not enough wind to complete them in front of an enthusiastic crowd in Marseille.
The race committee said after several hours that there would be no more racing on Thursday and both the men’s and women’s skiff medals races would be held on Friday.
After the first attempt was abandoned during the second leg of the race, the 10 men’s crews sat out on the Mediterranean in their black-sailed, “winged” skiffs under a blazing sun waiting for the breeze to fill in on the race course nearest the shore.
Spain’s Diego Botin and Florian Trittel took an early lead in the first race before they were swallowed up by a black hole in the wind, while the Dutch duo of Bart Lambriex and Floris van de Werken dominated what there was of the second attempt before the fleet sailed to a standstill at the bottom mark.
The Spanish SailGP winners go into the double-points medals race on top of the leaderboard, ahead of the Irish pair of Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove in second and New Zealand’s ‘McKiwis’ Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie in third.
The women’s skiff medal race had been due to take place after the men’s, but there was no attempt to start it after the failures to complete the other big event of the day.
(Reporting by Alexander Smith; Editing by Toby Davis and Ed Osmond)
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